Bietigheim-Bissingen

In my new life in Germany my home city is Bietigheim-Bissinen.  This city is the last stop on the S-5 train so this means its one of the furthest outlying suburbs.  Its about a 20 minute train ride from the center of Stuttgart.  The so called suburbs here are all built or at least seem to be built around some sort of train stop.  You go from one city to another and there is farms, fields, and woods between then.  A lot of the towns have an old city portion to them and then they have expanded outward as the years go on.  From my hotel which is in the new city it is about a 30 minute walk to the old city.  Along the way there is a nice paved bike/walking trail that goes along the river and heads to the old city.  Along the way there is a bridge that is used for trains.  I think its quite neat in it architecture. 

Then you walk past a indoor water park, a few shops and you get to the entrance of the old city.

Inside this entrance there is for the most part only people and bikes with the occasional dog.  It has the old feel to it but most of the shops are modern.  Some of the buildings you can tell have been updated but they kept the original old world feel to them.  There is everything from restaurants, drug stores, jewelry stores, and ice cream shops.  They are all closed during the week by 8 pm and on Saturday by 1pm except for the restaurants.  Sunday not much moves in Germany on that day with even a lot of the restaurants are closed.  The inner city has quite a few statues.  It seems like on every cross road there is one.

This whole old city is maybe a quarter of a mile long.  So its not that big but entertaining to see.  On the walk back to the hotel you can keep going along the water and it has a very up north Michigan feel to it.  Without the snow of course.

I have been told that a town two train stops away is a lot better to visit.  That might be is weekends trip or I might go to Stuttgart.  We'll have to see...